RAMALLAH, May 27, 2026 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday evening sealed off several checkpoints to the north of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to local sources.
They said that the occupying forces closed the 'Atarah and 'Ein Siniya military checkpoints as well as the gates at the entrances of several villages, including Turmus Ayya, Yabrud, Taybeh, Nabi Saleh, Aboud, and Silwad, holding commuters for a long time, checking their ID cards, inspecting vehicles, and causing traffic congestion.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces sealed off several checkpoints to the south of Nablus, including the Za'tara checkpoint, as well as the entrances of several villages and towns, including Al-Lubban Ash-Sharqiyya and Qabalan.
In the meantime, the sources confirmed several raids in al-Mughayyir village, northeast of Ramallah, al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem, and Hizma town, northeast of Jerusalem.
In the course of the raids, the soldiers ransacked several stores, inspected Palestinian-licensed vehicles, interrogated commuters, and unleashed barrages of tear gas canisters at civilians’ homes.
The occupation forces have tightened military measures across the occupied West Bank hours after the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the Gaza ceasefire went into effect on January 19. Such restrictions were further tightened under the pretext of and since the onset of the Israeli-Iranian war, dismembering and isolating cities and governorates from one another using military gates, barriers, and concrete blocks.
The Israeli military measures are in parallel with ongoing attacks by Israeli colonists across the West Bank to terrorize Palestinians and displace them from their lands to seize them and build illegal Jewish colonies that separate Palestinian communities.
Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the occupied West Bank through a complex combination of approximately 898 fixed and flying checkpoints and gates, including 18 gates that have been installed since the start of 2025 and 146 others installed in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, settler-only roads, over 200 military bases, and various other physical obstructions.
Closures, besides other measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 59-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project, which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.
K.F.
